B&H Airlines summer 2009Scandinavia calling

3 new destinations for B&H

Only months after being purchased by Turkish Airlines, the national carrier of Bosnia and Herzegovina, B&H Airlines, has published its summer schedule which includes 3 new destinations. The 3 destinations are all in Scandinavia where one can find a high concentration of the Bosnian Diaspora. Two of the destinations are in Sweden (Stockholm and Gothenburg) while the other is in Denmark (Copenhagen). Unfortunately these flights, scheduled to begin in May, have still not gained government approval. Once they do tickets will go on sale and flights details will be released. The new service should be operated with a Boeing B737-400, B&H’s first jet engine aircraft. All other services will be operated with the airlines 2 ATR72-200 aircraft.

Two services will be suspended - to Cologne Bonn and to the Macedonian capital Skopje. The service to Cologne was operated twice a week during the winter while Skopje 3 times per week. Both destinations have been dumped due to low profitability. To Cologne B&H lost most of its passengers after the low cost Germanwings began operating this sector (the airline is increasing its frequency to 3 weekly flights from summer 2009). Other services will receive a frequency boost although Istanbul will be unchanged with 6 weekly nonstop services from Sarajevo and one weekly service via Mostar. B&H will also, for the first time, include Tuzla in its services with the city being a stop over from Sarajevo to Frankfurt twice a week.

The schedule below shows the frequencies during this winter and the planned frequencies. Also the table shows the aircraft used during the winter months and which aircraft will be used during the summer.

Flights from Sarajevo:

Destination	Frequency (winter 2008/09)	Frequency (summer 2009)	Aircraft type (winter 2008/09)	Aircraft type (summer 2009)
Cologne/Bonn	2	SUSPENDED	ATR72	-
Frankfurt	4	6 (2 via Tuzla)	ATR72	ATR72
Istanbul	7 (1 via Mostar)	7 (1 via Mostar)	ATR72	ATR72
Skopje	3	SUSPENDED	ATR72	-
Zurich	4 (2 via Banja Luka)	4 (2 via Banja Luka)	ATR72	ATR72
Stockholm (from May 1)	-	1	-	B737-400
Gothenburg (from May 2)	-	2	-	B737-400
Copenhagen (from May 4)	-	2	-	B737-400

* All frequencies above are weekly. The timetable is subject to change and if there are any changes it will be updated.